Do you ever just get the irresistible urge to run away? Not to leave your life, necessarily, or even to live somewhere else; rather to be in a completely empty place, where you are the only one in sight, and able to run to your full capacity. To be able to jump and shout and sing and spin around without inhibition because no one is watching. It’s just you and the trees and the air and the grass and the clear sky. Your bare feet in the soft dirt, your hands tracing the grooves of the bark.
Your thoughts and opinions are the only ones which matter. You are in complete control of how you spend your time. No one depends on you and you don’t depend on them and you are completely secure in the knowledge that you are enough.
But then it’s time to go back. Back to the obligations and the commitments and the people who need things from you. Back to the expectations and tasks. Back to those who make you supremely happy and indescribably sad. Back to the pain and triumph. Back to the performance which is your life. Back to the never ending chase to achieve it all.
Recently, I needed to run away so I went to the place where I experienced the hardest physical moments of my life and the place where I was undeniably happiest; I went to the boathouse where I was a coxswain (the person in crew who yells commands and steers the boat). I took a path I had never before gone down and found myself in the woods next to the lake. It was beautiful and I was alone and I ran. I was in my favorite dress and my sandals and not exactly equipped to run but I needed to, so I did and my heart soared. In that moment I was free from judgement and expectations, both external and internal. I spun and sang and enjoyed being with myself.
But then it was time to go back. And I knew that I could handle it. I knew that the feeling of freedom and elation was not exclusive to that moment. All I need is to revisit that place, in my mind or in person, and know that, after all, as long as places like that exists the person I am when I am there exists. That mindset is always in me, just waiting for permission to step in. I have the power to allow it to guide me.
Do you have a place of escape? What do you do when you need to run away?
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